Miami is often called the capital of Latin America. So when 20 Democratic presidential candidates gathered for debates in Miami last week, WLRN’s Americas editor Tim Padgett thought he'd hear more about Latin America policy. But as Padgett told WLRN’s Luis Hernandez, he and a lot of other South Floridians were disappointed.

With the start of baseball season in sight, millions of Latino fans in the U.S., the Caribbean, and Latin America will be rooting for their favorite players, many of whom are transplants from places like Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Cuba. But Spanish-speaking fans, millions of whom watch Spanish-language broadcasts of baseball games, will have little idea of the lingering challenge some Latino players in the States have long faced: inadequate language support from the minor and majorleagues.

Today on the Florida Roundup, we're talking special session, soccer and Spanish.

SPECIAL SESSION

At 1 p.m. Monday afternoon gavels will fall in the Florida House and Senate, calling to order a special session of the state Legislature. Lawmakers have only one piece of business to take care of: pass a budget before July 1 or risk a state government shutdown.

The list of things that threaten the U. S. economy is long, indeed. But here's one item that might not have occurred to you.

Speaking bad English.

As the Brookings Institution scopes it out in a report released Wednesday, immigrants seeking work in the U. S. often have to settle for jobs beneath their qualifications just because their English is not up to snuff.

Univision dominates Spanish-language broadcasting, more than doubling the audience of its largest rival, Telemundo. But starting this fall, Univision will tackle an audience that has always been foreign to the Doral-based network: people who watch television in English.

With ABC as a partner, Univision is betting big on carving out a niche in English-language television with Fusion, a cable network billed as targeting young Hispanics.

Michelle Antelo was born and raised in Miami but has never lived anywhere else. After learning Spanish at home from her Cuban parents, she always thought her English, which she learned at school, was up to American standards.

But, as many Miamians have learned, her way of speaking stuck out around people from places other than Miami. When Antelo was a cheerleader in high school, her Broward County teammates told her she sounded different.

For three consecutive weeks this summer, Spanish-language TV network Univision won the prime-time ratings among young adult viewers. The network is bragging about its prime-time ratings domination with full-page ads in the LA Times, New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Its English-language video exclaims: "For the first time ever, Univision is now the number one network in any language."